Surgical patients today often desire operations be performed with the least amount of intrusion into the body. Such minimally invasive procedures usually provide speedier recovery for the patient with less pain and bodily trauma, thereby reducing the medical costs and the overall disruption to the life of the patient. A minimally invasive approach also usually results in a smaller incision and, therefore, less scarring, which is an aesthetic advantage attractive to most patients.
The use of a minimally invasive approach, however, introduces new complexities to surgery thus placing a greater burden on the operating surgeon. Most notably, minimally invasive approaches drastically reduce the size of the surgical field available to the surgeon for the manipulation of tissue and for the introduction of necessary surgical instruments, such as cutting devices, clamps, prosthetic holders, and so on.
The aforesaid complexities are especially acute in connection with heart surgery. Unlike common heart surgeries performed using a full medial sternotomy, minimally invasive heart surgery offers a surgical field that may be only as large as a resected intercostal space or a transversely cut and retracted sternum. Consequently, the introduction of tools, such as prosthetic sizing elements, valve holders, annuloplasty ring holders, and other such devices, becomes a great deal more complicated.
The majority of instruments currently available to surgeons for performing minimally invasive surgeries are devices designed for use in far less restrictive surgical fields. That is, the existing instruments have characteristics which are not conducive for use in restrictive surgical fields. For example, in heart surgery, the majority of implements available to hold or retain various heart devices or tools (e.g., heart valves and annuloplasty rings) in a minimally invasive procedure either are too short to enable easy introduction of prostheses to the target site and/or have shafts which lack the necessary malleability or flexibility to enable proper orientation of the prostheses at the distal end of the shaft. Indeed, there are a number of conventional handles with shafts that require an end load of 25 pounds (lbs.) or more to bend the shaft. Furthermore, many of the existing devices have only one application, e.g., a handle for a valve-sizing template or a handle for holding a prosthetic valve, thus requiring the introduction of multiple tools into the surgical field. Examples of such prior art devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,679,556 to Lubock et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,531,785 to Love et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,360,014 to Sauter et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,403,305 to Sauter et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,476,510 to Eberhardt et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,489,296 to Love et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,560,487 to Starr.